  The woodman and his wife. Once upon a time there lived an old woodman and his wife in a tiny little hut near the edge of the forest. Now, a very rich man had his orchard near their home—so close, in fact, that the boughs of a big pear-tree hung right over their yard. The rich man was a generous neighbor, and he agreed to give the poor man and his wife the fruit that fell into their garden. So the old woodman and his wife watched with hungry eyes as the pears ripened in the sunshine. “How I wish that a wind-storm would come and let those pears drop on our side of the fence,” said the old woman. “Yes,” agreed the old man; “I wish that I dared to shake the tree a little and make some of the fruit fall this way, but our neighbor might see it, and then he would be angry and not give us any of them.” Every day, the old woman grumbled more and more, “I declare, we shall be beggars,” she groaned; and she insisted that her husband work harder and harder each day, while she would give him nothing to eat but a dry crust of bread. The poor man grew thinner and thinner while he waited for the pears to ripen and fall into their yard; and every day he worked harder and harder, but he could not please his grumbling old wife. At last he turned around on her and, in great anger, said, “Wife, I will not do any more work unless you make some khichri for my dinner.” “Khichri!” shrieked the wife; “khichri! Indeed I will not. Do you not know that khichri takes rice and pulse and butter and spices? Do you think that I am going to use all we have in the house on one meal for you?” “Yes,” said the old man, “that is why I demand khichri. You have starved me quite long enough and now I will have the best dish you can make me.” The cross old woman took the things out of the closet and began to cook a savory khichri. It smelt so good that the old man could hardly wait for it. “Let me have a taste?” he begged. “No, no,” scolded his wife, “you cannot have even a taste of it until you have brought me in another load of wood, and mind that it is a big one. You will have to work for your khichri.” The old woodman took his axe and went out to the forest and began to hew and hack the trees with all his strength and soon he had a large load of wood. Chop! chop! chop! At every blow of his axe he would think of the savory khichri he would soon enjoy. Suddenly a big black bear came lumbering along through the forest with his long black nose tilted in the air and his little keen eyes peering all about him, for bears are always curious. “Grr-rr-Grr-rr! Good-day to you, my friend,” growled the bear. “And may I ask what you are doing with that large bundle of wood?” “I cut it for my wife,” answered the woodman. “You see, she would not cook me any dinner unless I brought her the wood. Today she has made me khichri for dinner and I know that when she sees this large load of wood, she will give me a generous portion. Oh, just smell that khichri; it is delicious!” This made the bear very hungry and so he growled, “Do you think that your wife would give me some khichri, if I brought her some wood?” “Maybe she might, if you brought her a very large load,” answered the man. After a long discussion, the bear agreed to bring in half a cord of wood, if the man would save him some of the khichri. “Half a cord is a very large load of wood,” grumbled the bear. “But there is saffron and rice and pulse and butter in the khichri. It is a very expensive dish,” said the woodman. The bear licked his chops at this and his bright little eyes gleamed with greed. “It is a bargain,” he cried. “I will bring you half a cord of wood, so go home and tell your wife to keep the khichri hot, for I shall be with you soon.” The woodman went home and told his wife about his bargain with the bear. “Half a cord of wood is good pay for a share of our dinner,” said the man. Now the wife knew that her husband had made a good bargain with the bear, but she always found fault and grumbled about everything, so she began to scold the old man. “You should have made a better bargain with the bear. Bears are always greedy,” she stormed. “You know that he will gobble up all the khichri, before we have had a mouthful.” “Do you think your wife would give me some khichri, if I brought her some wood?” “Do you think your wife would give me some khichri, if I brought her some wood?” When the woodman heard this he grew quite pale. “Don’t you think that we had better begin now and have a fair start before the bear comes?” he asked. So they squatted down upon the floor mat with the big brass pot of khichri placed between and began to eat and eat as fast as they could. “Yum-mm, Yum-mm, YUMM, this khichri is good!” mumbled the man as he crammed his mouth full. “But we must remember to leave some for the bear, wife!” “Yes, certainly, certainly!” replied the woman, helping herself to more. “We must leave some for that poor hungry bear!” But they went right on eating and eating until there was not a single mouthful left in the pot. “What shall we do now, when the bear comes?” cried the woodman. “It is all your fault, wife, for suggesting that the bear would eat it all.” “My fault! my fault, indeed!” shrieked the wife. “You suggested that we begin to eat before the bear came in, and you ate twice as much as I did!” “No, I did not!” “Yes, you did so, and you know it!” “Well, there is no good in quarrelling about it now,” said the woodman. “The bear will be here in a few moments and he will be furious when he finds the khichri all gone. He is very large and very hungry and he may eat us when he finds that we have gone back on our word.” “Nonsense!” said the woman. “What a coward you are! All you think about is saving yourself! I do not care whether he is angry or not. I want to get that wood from him.” “He will never give it to you, when he finds no dinner,” said the man. “Of course not, you stupid,” scolded the Now all this time the bear had been working hard in the forest and it took him much longer than he had expected to gather all that wood. However, at last he dragged half a cord of wood to the house of the old woodman. Seeing the brass khichri pot standing by the fire, he threw down his pile of wood and went at once for his dinner. And then when he saw that there was not even a grain of rice left in the pot, Me-oh-my! wasn’t he angry? He growled and he roared and he poked his head ’way down into the pot and licked the sides of it. But not even a tiny bit of pulse could he taste, though all the time he could smell how savory that khichri had been. He sat on the floor and cried in his rage and disappointment, “Grr-rr! Grr! Grr-rr-rr! That is a fine way to keep a promise! Well, since you have eaten all the khichri, I will find something else to eat!” Then he upset everything in the house, but no food could he find. “Grr! Grr-rr! Grr-rr!” growled the bear. “I will take all of this wood back to the forest again. They broke their bargain with me and they shall not have one of my sticks to burn.” But just as the old woman had expected he was much too lazy to carry the heavy load back to the forest, even for revenge. “I will not go away empty-handed,” he growled. “If they would not save me a taste, I can at least get the smell!” And he carried the brass pot away with him. Now, as the bear left the cottage, he saw the beautiful golden pears hanging from the tree. These were the first pears of the season, and they looked very good to him. So he climbed up into the tree and began to eat the biggest, ripest pear that he could find. My! but it was good! The bear was so hungry, after his hard work in the forest, that he licked his chops and smacked his lips as he munched the pear. And then he thought of a plan. “I shall take these pears home with me and sell them to the other bears in the forest and with the money I can buy all the khichri that I can eat! Ha! Ha! Ha!” laughed the bear. “I shall have the best of the bargain after all! I will fool that old woodman and his wife, and they will not have even so much as a taste of one.” Then the bear began to gather the ripe pears as fast as he could and put them into the big brass pot, but whenever he came to an unripe pear he would shake his head and say, “No one will buy this green one, yet it is a shame to waste it.” So he would pop the green pear into his own mouth and gobble it up, though he made wry faces as he ate. Now all this time, the woodman and his wife had been hiding in the garret and the woodman’s wife was peeking through a little crevice watching the bear. When she saw how furious he was, she held her breath for fear he would discover them. When he climbed the tree and was eating the pears, she was angry at losing their share of the fruit, but she was too terrified to call out. At last from the excitement and the dust in her hiding place, she could hold in no longer, and just when the bear had filled the pot with ripe golden pears, out she came with a most tremendous sneeze: “A-h Che-u! Che-uu-uu!” The bear was startled by this sound—so much like the explosion of a gun—and off he lumbered into the forest, dropping the khichri pot in the yard as he ran. Now, as the pot had dropped into their yard, the woodman and his wife got all the pears, as well as the khichri they had eaten, and half a cord of wood, while the poor bear got nothing but a very bad stomachache from eating unripe fruit. So that was the end of the bear’s bad bargain. Elephant heads and flowers. |
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